I imagine it's very difficult for the football players to support their children and families unless they have significant assistance from their parents, and/or their partner has a stable non-student income.
For those of you complaining about student athlete stipends, here are some numbers to put things in perspective:
From 2010-2011, the football program at UNL brought in $32,084,379 of profit (not total revenue, but profit source).
Assuming 85 scholarship athletes and a total cost of tuition, fees and housing of $28,580 per year for out of staters (source), that means they pay out $2,429,300 per year.
If you pay each scholarship player $1,420/mo for 12 months, then that is $17,240/player per year for a total of $1,448,400, bringing the total direct payments and education expenses to the players to $3,877,700.
Bo Pelini makes more than $2,775,000 each year, plus $150k for reaching a non-BCS bowl game, bringing it to at least $2,925,000 (source)
From a financial perspective, the university receives a profit of $32+ million while paying out only roughly $4 million to 85 players. That's an insane return on investment for the university, and if you add in the other expenses for medical and academic support, etc., they're still making a killing compared to what they're paying out. Even the coaches at the bottom end make several hundred thousand (or close to $3mil if you're head honcho), and if they leave the university for a better position, they face basically no fiscal repercussions themselves. Coaches can also get significant income from endorsements or other activities that are made possible by their positions as football coaches at a big university. Meanwhile the athletes get an education and maybe $17k in their pockets, but also face strict restrictions on transferring, cannot accept any endorsement deals or money that is made by using their names and numbers in marketing, video games, etc.
You can come to your own conclusions, but to me I think that giving the players $17k in pocket money in addition to a free education is still not enough for what they're providing to the university. I think that to try to call it amateur athletics is a joke.
Also to try to compare their low incomes to what you made as a college student seems completely irrelevant -- how much profit did you generate for the university while you were attending?